


break me open, let me see all the ruined things

by angelcult



Series: the love and loss of would-be gods [2]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Heavy Angst, Immortality, M/M, Past Character Death, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Starvation, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25689502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelcult/pseuds/angelcult
Summary: Being immortal is harder than Sonic would have ever known, especially now that he’s faced with the predicament of his past haunting his every waking moment.Shadow’s there to make sure he doesn’t have to do it alone.
Relationships: Shadow the Hedgehog/Sonic the Hedgehog
Series: the love and loss of would-be gods [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862905
Comments: 5
Kudos: 61





	break me open, let me see all the ruined things

**Author's Note:**

> This is the direct sequel to “if i can only save one (it has to be you)” which I’d recommend reading first so that this makes sense. Thank you!

Tails’ funeral was on a pretty day, the sky was bruised purple and the grass was such a vibrant green that Sonic couldn’t believe he was standing there, beside Shadow who was giving him a soft, worried look.

Tails was the last of his friends, and Sonic found that it was hard to cry. He’d raised Tails from a kit, sent him off to college, hell, Tails had been the one he cried to when Shadow had reversed his aging.

He could still remember the conversation.

* * *

  
_ “God, Tails, I’m practically nineteen again and everyone around me..” _

_ The kitsune rolled his eyes and smiled, he always seemed too carefree, even at the age of thirty-five.  _

_ “Is growing older? Is dying? I know, it must be.. A lot. But you know something, Sonic? I don’t think that scares anyone but you, and that’s okay. No one’s mad at you, no one blames you for anything.” _

_ Sonic sniffled, peach fur beneath his eyes matted with tears.  _

_ “Really?” _

_ It was moments like that that seemed to remind Tails that Sonic had been on his own for a very long time before he’d found him. That he was afraid of returning to that loneliness. _

_ “Sonic, Shadow’s got you.” Tails said with a little smile. “He’s got you.”  _

* * *

  
“Sonic?” Shadow’s soft look made him melt a little inside. “Do you need some time alone?” 

The blue hedgehog looked back at the grave, thought of that reassurance ( _ “Shadow’s got you, Sonic.”)  _ and shook his head, grasping his husband’s hand.

“It’s alright, I’ll be alright.” 

* * *

  
“I’ll be alright” was a lot harder than he’d imagined it would be, but Sonic supposed that he should have expected it. 

Shadow, though? He was such a godsend, for the days when Sonic looked in the mirror and cringed at the sight of bright blue quills that should have gone gray and dulled a long time ago. 

Even Robotnik was dead, there was very little danger to protect the world from. The blue speedster knew that with age, he would have faded into obscurity. He’d have become a fairytale or a legend, but he was still  _ alive. _

And that intrigued people everywhere. It drew the attention of science, activists and the general public. 

No one knew the secret he held besides Shadow and himself, and it weighed on his shoulders. Sonic found himself constantly asking the question:  _ “What’s my purpose?” _

He didn’t feel like he had one anymore, he felt like he’d failed somehow, about  _ something.  _ He feels like he’d failed his friends and the rest of the world just by living this long.

“Sonic?” The hero looked at his husband and smiled, standing up from where he was sitting at the foot of the bed. 

Shadow walked over and pulled him close, a hand on his waist, pressing his nose to Sonic’s cheek in greeting. Sonic easily melted into his husband’s hold, eyes closing as he breathed out slowly.

“How are we today?” Shadow sat down on the bed and guided Sonic down beside him and gave him another one of those looks, one of those ones that was careful and open.

“Okay. Tired.” Sonic muttered, sighing again. “Shads, be honest with me, we’ve been alive so long. The world is changing, it’s  _ safe..  _ What comes next?”

Shadow paused and pursed his lips, brow furrowed as he thought over those words.

The world had changed, for the better, and most crime could easily be handled by authorities rather than the blue hedgehog. Rubbing his hand up and down Sonic’s side, Shadow looked at him.

“You can travel. Like a retirement plan.” It was a bad attempt at a joke but it made Sonic’s lips quirk up in a smile regardless. 

“You callin’ me old, Shads?” He chuckled, tilted his head and turned his ears towards the black and red hedgehog.

“If I’m calling you old, I must be ancient.” Shadow humored, smiling back a little before he followed up his initial train of thought. 

“We can.. go to all the places we want. You could show me where you grew up, remember when you wanted to do that?”

Sonic falls quiet and nods, looking up at the ceiling.

“You can see the places I grew up with my uncle, and my siblings.” Sonic mumbled, eyes gazing at everything and nothing.

Shadow just wanted to see him smile again.

  
  
  


Turns out, the place Sonic lived for some of his youth was miraculously still standing. It was for lease, looking cleaner and had clearly been renovated, but it was still there.

Sonic was awed.

“Wow…”

* * *

  
_ “Sonic, honey? Where's my baby hiding?” His adoptive mother’s voice was soft and melodic, the sound of her bare feet against the wood as she got closer and walked past where he hid was exhilarating. _

_ “Boo!” He jumped out and she gasped, turning to him and swooping down to pick him up. Her bright red hair was down for once, falling over her shoulders like water and flying out as she spun them around. _

_ He could hear the ruffle of her dress, she smelled like the flowers outside in their garden and the earthy dirt. _

_ He was safe in her arms, and her dark green eyes promised love. _

_ He never wants to leave this moment. _

* * *

  
“Sonic?”

“Oh, sorry, Shads,” He grasped his husband’s hand and smiled at him, eyes soft with emotion. “I was thinking, is all.” His ears folded back and he looked back at the house, thinking of Swatbots and his pleading cries for his adoptive parents safety.

“Do you want to go?” Shadow’s deep red eyes betrayed his worries, he was so much better at showing his emotions now.

“Yeah.. Let’s go.”

  
  


Streaks of blue and red, dancing around each other in the open field of wildflowers, Sonic smiled, tossing back promises of winning this race, despite the fact that he and Shadow had been so evenly matched for so long.

When he looks at Shadow, who easily swirls around him, graceful and with practiced ease, Sonic is reminded of a time when Shadow would have never allowed him to be this close.

He thinks of a time where he’d look at Shadow and think of how much he reminded him of himself.

Sonic’s thoughts are a whirlwind of times when everything felt so complicated but so much simpler.

He thinks of his brother and sister, of his birth mother, his absent and forgotten father, and he slips.

It used to happen all the time when he was younger, slipping and falling and skinning himself. He hasn’t slipped when running in years, and it’s such a shock that it doesn’t really hurt when he goes skidding across the ground, cushioned by the flowers and tall grass.

“Sonic!”

There’s blood in his mouth, he hasn’t bled like  _ that  _ in so long, that when Shadow drops down beside him, he stops him from wiping it away.

He sits up and stares at his gloves, there’s blood staining the bright white fabric, there’s a slight ache in his ankle. 

“Are you okay? Sonic?”

“Yeah, I-“ His eyes are starting to tear up, but he keeps trying to speak through it. “I’m-I’m okay, I’m okay-“

His voice is breaking, the tears are matting the fur beneath his eyes as he cries, leaning into Shadow’s side when his arms around him.

“I’m okay, Shadow.”

“Okay, honey, you’re okay.” Sonic can hear the pain in Shadow’s voice, he can hear the disbelief as he slowly rocks them from side to side.

“You’re okay.”

They both know that he’s not. 

  
  


Retiring to the hotel in the area, Shadow makes Sonic sit still as he cleans the blood from his fur. It’s started to dry, but thankfully loosens with the help of the wet rag.

He tries to wipe away the tears as well, but all that does is worsen it, so he stops. 

“Shadow?”

“Yes?”

Sonic is staring at him, his eyes are dewy and unsure, as if he’s already confused by the unspoken request.

“Lay with me?”

Soft, his voice is fragile and Shadow nods, dropping the rag to the floor and climbing into the large bed. He guides Sonic up to the top, and they lay down, facing each other.

“I’m sorry. Today was supposed to be a good one.”

Shadow reached over and laid his palm against Sonic’s cheek, tracing his thumb back and forth slowly, eyes softening as he looked at him.

“You don’t have to apologize. It was supposed to be a good day, and it was, but I know that it was an emotional one for you as well.”

Sonic shrugged, looking down and picking with a loose thread. His gloves weren’t on, and his hands were shaking.

His small claws looked close to cutting  _ himself, _ and Shadow slid his hand from Sonic’s cheek, down his shoulder and arm before gently clasping his hands.

“It was a lot.” Shadow tries to reassure.

“I didn’t want it to be this way.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be.”

Shadow pulled Sonic closer, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and tucking his head beneath his own, feeling Sonic’s quills instinctively soften under his touch.

“Tomorrow will be better.”

He wants tomorrow to be better, it has to be.

Tomorrow has to be better.

  
  


Sonic wakes before Shadow, and he can only watch him with unadulterated awe.

There was a time when Shadow didn’t really sleep, where he’d work himself into a forced exhaustion, but not anymore.

Now, he sleeps beside Sonic every night.

He sleeps wearing his wedding ring even though it mats the fur beneath, and he always seems to sleep better when Sonic is at his side.

His chest is slowly rising and falling, his eyelashes flutter with the movement of his eyes, he’s in a deep sleep.

Sonic doesn’t sleep so well anymore. He dreams of his friends, he dreams about Tails, Amy and Knuckles, he thinks about how much has changed.

He doesn’t even remember how old he really is sometimes, confused by the figure in the mirror that looks so young and untouched by the passage of time. 

He hates waking up and knowing that the faces in his dreams are all dead now, gone, as time and morality would have it naturally.

Sonic isn’t natural, however, not really.

He’s a being of chaos energy that changed in a way that it wasn’t used to, now flowing in a circle rather than out of him.

An eternal circuit of energy.

Shadow made a soft noise in his sleep, curling closer to Sonic and burying his face into his chest, breathing out softly as he settled once more. 

It was the soft moments like this that Sonic enjoyed most of all. It was the way he could just lay in bed with Shadow for what felt like forever- 

For forever.

Sonic’s eyes closed and he exhaled softly.

He never wanted to live longer than he had to and now, he was alive and misplaced, all disjointed and uneasy in a world that didn’t need him.

He had Shadow, sure, but what of everyone else? Sonic knew from experience that making a person your  _ everything  _ was just unhealthy.

Red eyes blearily blinked open and Sonic smiled. 

“Good morning.”

Shadow buried his face into Sonic’s chest in lieu of a response and grumbled something under his breath that could be vaguely considered a response.

“Still sleepy, huh?” Sonic asked, curling around Shadow and running his hand over the fur at the top of his head, humming softly under his breath.

His eyes slipped closed, and he could feel the weight of his fatigue, melting into a pleasantly warm darkness.

Shadow felt the rumble of Sonic’s humming taper off into silence, and he knew that he must have fallen asleep.

With the way they were tangled, it would be impossible to get up without waking him, so he allowed himself to drift in that fuzzy gray area between being asleep and awake.

_ Hypnagogia,  _ his mind belated supplied him,  _ the threshold consciousness.  _

He soon followed Sonic into sleep, a blissful but welcome submergence into darkness. 

  
  


The next time they awoke, the sun was brighter and Sonic seemed more rested than he had that morning.

Their routine went as it always did. They showered together, washing one another’s fur and quills, a time-worn routine that neither grew tired of. 

“Where are we going today?” Shadow asked and Sonic hummed, brushing his quills slowly as he seemed to mentally shift through different places. 

“We could.. go to one of the places that my siblings and I used to perform. Places like that used to be illegal, back with Robotnik, but it was all we had.” He explained, a far away look in his eyes as he spoke. 

He always seemed a little farther away when he mentioned his siblings, he was aware that Robotnik had killed them, but it was the one thing over the years that he never spoke about, and Shadow knew not to pry. 

A loss like that was one you never truly healed from.

“Okay.”

“For warning, it’s a little.. Rough around the edges.”

Shadow smiled softly.

“It was a place hidden among the middle of a resistance, I’m not exactly expecting five-star service here, Sonic.”

Sonic laughed under his breath, it was breathy and empty still.

Shadow wanted that to change too, the emptiness, even though he knew that he was the one who had caused it.

  
  


Shadow found himself greatly overestimating where Sonic would take him, and now, as he walked along back alleys and through dilapidated buildings that looked one strong breeze away from caving in, he was growing a bit apprehensive.

He walked until Sonic’s ears perked up and he led him to a bar, a familiar light glinting in his bright eyes as he walked them in.

The crowd was quiet, but their eyes raised to the two heroes as they made their way across the creaking floor and the woman at the bar frowned.

“Sonic.”

“Sherry.” She was a fox with graying hair and a slight limp. Shadow could see the metal glint in her eyes and he immediately knew that she must have been one of the few to barely get away from being completely roboticized.

“Haven’t seen you in years, kid.” She smiled, and her eyes locked in on Shadow who met them, frowning slightly.

“You must Shadow, you boys were all over the news.” She held her hand out. “Nice to finally meet you.”

Shadow clasped her and shook, nodding his greeting. It didn’t take much to assume that her aging was slowed exponentially based on how much of her form was made of metal.

“Have a seat. Drinks are on the house.”

  
  


“You should have seen those kids, I was younger than them at the time but I remember the way they played like there was tomorrow.”

Sonic nursed his drink and shrugged, he had never been a big drinker.

“Well, we always sort of thought there wouldn’t be one, ya know?”

Sherry nodded, refilling Shadow’s glass without him having to ask.

“Even then- you three amazed us. You sang like angels and made running this place worthwhile for my father.”

“I haven’t sang in so long.” Sonic admitted brokenly, eyes falling onto his cup. “Not after-“ He glanced at the stage and back to his cup.

“It was like my voice was just gone, like they’d taken it with them.”

Sherry observed him, in a way that one would observe someone they once knew, and Shadow guesses that in many respects she  _ did  _ know Sonic, but Shadow knows that he’s not the person he once was.

“Then find it again.”

“I can’t-“

“You  _ can,”  _ And her voice is harsh in a way that reminds Shadow of how he used to speak to Sonic, and he felt his fur bristle. 

“You’re just scared to try.”

Sonic avoided her eyes and drained his cup, ears folding back, he was clearly upset but trying to force himself to not leave. 

“So what if I am?”

He asked and Shadow saw Sherry’s eyes harden.

“What happened to the fearless hero?”

Sonic stood, sliding the empty glass back to her.

“There was never a fearless hero.” His voice was soft, almost breaking. “Only a terrified one.”

Sherry took the glass and nodded, in understanding but also in defeat. 

They exited the bar, and the light that had been in Sonic’s eyes when he entered was not gone, replaced by a dull and tarnished green. 

“Sonic?”

The blue hedgehog just shook his head, lips turned down in a frown on his muzzle as he walked, ears turned down.

“Let’s just go home.”

“Okay.”

They packed and left the hotel, and the drive home was a silent one, a tension between them that Shadow felt like he’d once again caused by trying to make Sonic happy.

It seems that all his attempts were falling flat.

When they arrived home, Sonic was out of the car before it could even finish parking and through the front door, a streak of blue left behind. 

Shadow sighed and pulled the keys out of the ignition, trying to force the tears down but ultimately failing as they ran down his cheeks and streaked through his fur.

He didn’t know what to do.

His husband was all he had left, and most days, it felt like there wasn’t anyone with him at all, just a shell, a whisper or maybe a ghost, leaving traces but not imprints.

There, but not quite. 

Shadow leaned his head against the wheel as sobs racked his chest.

In his attempt to save his husband, it felt like he was the one who’d killed him. 

  
  


They never do talk about it, those two failed vacation days, but the divide between them.. grows with it, it festers like a wound.

Sonic doesn’t eat like he should, even his favorite foods do nothing to pique his interest.

If Shadow is lucky, he’ll drink a cup of coffee or tea, maybe he’ll eat a piece of toast or two. 

He doesn’t get lucky much. 

Sonic’s starting to deteriorate and Shadow knows what he’s trying to do, he had done it once when he was young and foolishly thought that he could end the curse he never asked for.

It hurt more than it would have ever helped, it felt like he was dead, but forced to relive the same days over and over again.

It will always hurt, but starvation never works. Not when you’re full of chaos energy and it constantly heals every injury, every sickness.

Soon, Sonic’s body will start to rely on that energy and it’s a painful process as his body adjusts itself.

He doesn’t want him to know that pain.

  
  


“Honey,” Shadow is kneeling on the floor beside their bed, looking at the tiny sliver of green he sees through the thick covers. “Please come down and eat, it-it doesn’t have to be a lot just.. come eat.” His voice comes out weak and it cracks in a way that he’s not used to.

He rested his head on the bed, quills falling messily around him in their limp state.

“Please.” There are tears in his eyes, choking him up and snuffing out any hopes he had of not crying.

“I..”

“Okay.”

Shadow looks up, eyes rimmed red and his ears pressed down to his head.

“Okay. I’ll come down.”

Shadow notes how he carefully avoids saying that he’ll eat, but he takes what he can get nowadays.

“Thank you.”

  
  


Shadow doesn’t make a big meal, just a small one for the two of them. It’s a stew, it should be easy enough on Sonic’s stomach. 

He poked at it, though every little spoonful was enough to ease some of Shadow’s worrying.

Sonic didn’t finish it, but Shadow hadn’t expected him to. 

“It was good, Shads, you’ve always been such a good cook.”

“Thank you, Sonic.” They both fall silent again, as every conversation is between them now, barely existent and stilted, replacing the once flowing banter they had. 

Shadow finds himself unable to finish his food as well, something he hadn’t accounted for, but he cleared their dishes away anyway, cleaning them alone, ears tilted back towards the dining room.

He didn’t hear Sonic get up and leave the table, which he counted as a win, in his thin and sparse book of “wins”.

He came back and paused in the doorway, a smile winding onto his lips subconsciously. Sonic’s head was down, pillowed by his arms where he slept, hunched over in a way that had to be uncomfortable.

Shadow walks over quietly and carefully lifts him up into his arms, trying not to jostle him anymore than is necessary as he carries him upstairs and to their bedroom. 

He lays him down and hesitates only a moment before climbing in beside him.

Sonic’s sleeping form betrays his wants as he turns to him with subconscious instinct, curling into Shadow’s warmth and what little tension was left in his body melted into nothingness.

Shadow rested his head atop Sonic’s and slid his legs between the others, twining them together. 

The familiarity and the pressure was almost enough to make him want to cry again, it hurt in a way that felt good.

He can still feel his husband’s ribs, his breath shudders when he breathes, but at least he can hold him for now, and feel somewhat whole.

  
  


Sonic wakes before Shadow, still weighed down with fatigue but his eyes still find his husband’s face, and he observed the dark circles beneath them, the deep way he slept was a sign to just how tired he was.

Guilt ate at Sonic’s heart, he knew he was the cause of Shadow’s fatigue and worry, and he didn’t want to do that to him, he just didn’t know how to fix what was wrong and it pained him more than anything.

They were both suffering due to his distance.

“I’m sorry, Shadow..” Sonic murmured, pressing a kiss to his forehead and exhaling soft and deep. 

“I’ll fix this.”

* * *

  
Getting up everyday was hard, and it often led to Sonic sleeping all day and all night, waking up with headaches and fumbling through conversations, but at least he was eating again.

It was a rare occasion where they were both awake at the same time, Sonic laying on his side, watching Shadow read.

“I think I should go to therapy.”

Shadow paused, glancing over at Sonic before closing his book and setting it aside, turning his full attention to the other.

“Therapy?”

“Yeah.” Sonic sits himself up with a sigh, it’s tired in a way that portrays his age, his  _ real  _ age, not merely the one his physical body seems to be.

“I don’t think.. I know how to live like this. Like you.” His eyes close and his long eyelashes caress his cheeks, and when he speaks again there’s a notable shake in his voice.

“I don’t think I was meant to live this long, Shads, maybe I was supposed to die with Manic and Sonia but-  _ gods,  _ I’m falling apart, Shadow, because I’m a coward and I was-“ He cuts himself off, but he doesn’t need to say anymore.

Shadow’s heard all that he needed to.

“I’m sorry. I did this to you, even if you don’t want to put the blame on me.”

“Shadow, I’ve never blamed you-“

“You don’t have to.” Red eyes meet green, and Shadow can see the pain in them, the exhaustion and the frustration.

“You.. are such a good person, Sonic, and you’re hurting because I was.. afraid to be alone.”

Sonic scooted closer to Shadow, resting his head on his shoulder.

“I forgave you for that years ago.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Shadow,” Sonic answers with an amused laugh in his voice, looking up at him through his eyelashes. “I forgave you, the only person who needs to forgive you is yourself. It’s not your  _ fault  _ that I feel this way, I just-“

Sonic’s eyes closed and his brows furrowed deeply, lips twisting into a scowl.

“Manic and Sonia died, we were triplets, you know that and- and for years, I’ve been missing them, I feel like I’m supposed to be connected to them but there’s just  _ nothing  _ there, just an empty void.” He wipes his eyes and clears his throat.

“At least then, I always assumed I’d die in some glorious hail of fire or maybe just a heart attack or something but- instead I got killed and then revived, and then I got killed  _ again  _ and- it's a bad pattern to fall into when death was your only retirement plan.”

Shadow hummed, it made sense, from both a logical and an emotional standpoint. 

He knew about Sonic’s depression from before they even knew each other, the way he was barely holding himself together.

Being a hero is weighty work, and Sonic had been one all his life, never slowing down to mourn or grieve, only allowing himself to feel in the moment, pushing everything else down. 

Now, there was no constant distraction or some city to save.

It was just him and his thoughts, the weight of  _ decades  _ upon his shoulders, crushing him under the weight.

“I..” Shadow tilted Sonic’s head up and traced his thumb under one of his eyes. 

“Sonic?”

“Yes?”

Shadow didn’t have words, instead he rested his forehead against his husband’s and Sonic felt that familiar spark of energy, flaring up but not pushing into him, simply as if Shadow's chaos energy was responding to his high emotions.

“You said therapy?”

“Mhm.”

“We should start looking into therapists.”

  
  


Sonic was staring down at a picture, a frown on his face but it did nothing to change the way his eyes seemed overwhelmed.

“Sonic?”

His ear twitched, he’d heard him but his attention was still on the photo. Shadow cautiously walked up behind the other and looked down, pausing as he observed the picture.

It was the smiling headshot of a pink hedgehog, a shade darker than he remembered Amy’s fur being, with glittering green eyes.

“Sonic?”

“She looks just like Sonia.” He muttered, ears folding down before he slid the picture away, picking up another and reading what was written beneath it.

Shadow placed his hands on his husband’s shoulders, gently massaging them.

He doesn’t know what to say, all he can do is follow Sonic’s lead. 

  
  


He goes with a different therapist, a wolf with bright blue eyes and a sweet smile.

It’s a hard adjustment, and the media that had mostly grown used to Sonic’s presence ate up the idea of the hero needing therapy, but Sonic was always good at avoiding cameras and paparazzi.

That didn’t mean that therapy didn’t weigh on him at all, however, the relived memories and the relapses into silence or anger.

As it turns out, there’s more to the story, as there always is.

Sonic  _ had  _ almost died with his siblings, but in a joint effort, Sonia and Manic had taken the last, devastating blow, and died making sure Sonic lived.

Shadow wonders if the resistance would have died with Sonic, if he was the glue that had held it together.

That was too much weight to put on a child’s shoulders, but Sonic had carried it well into adulthood, and even now, even with the help, he was crumbling under the pressure. 

* * *

Sonic is sitting on the side of the bed, hands digging into his thighs as he sobs, chest heaving with pained and forced gasps.

“Sonic?” Shadow can smell blood, and he rushes in, kneeling down beside him. The smell is thicker up close, but he can see it now, Sonic’s claws are dug into his legs, forcing the wounds to stay open.

Shadow hates the smell of Sonic’s blood.

“Baby?”

“I-I’m sorry, I couldn’t feel anything and I needed to- I needed to feel something.”

Shadow knows the feeling intimately, he knows what it means to be so empty and numb that you’ll do anything to feel _ real _ for even a moment.

He’s ashamed of some of the things he’s done to himself to feel alive, for even a moment.

Shadow gently rests his hands on Sonic’s and carefully pries his claws from the wounds, wincing as he watches the chaos energy rush in and heal it, skin melding and leaving behind scars, the fur not growing back. 

“Hold on.”

Shadow stood, going to get a rag and pausing as he wet it in the sink, looking at himself in the mirror. 

How come part of healing was always hurting?

Coming back, he sat on the bed beside Sonic and cleaned the blood from his legs and hands. He dropped it to the floor as he pulled him into the middle of the bed.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“I know.. you don’t like seeing me hurt.”

Shadow nodded, and rested his hand on Sonic’s cheek. Despite the situation, things don’t feel as hopeless as they did before. 

“It’s okay, I’m not mad at you.”

“Do you think it’ll get better? That..  _ I  _ can get better?”

There’s so much trust in Sonic’s eyes, that Shadow can’t stop the smile from coming to his voice.

“Yes. I think you’re getting better already, even with everything that’s happening. I think you still have a long way to go but.. You’ll get there.”

Sonic smiled and scooted closer, pressing a kiss to Shadow’s mouth, and it’s a distant thought in both of their heads that they haven’t kissed like that in months. 

“I love you.” Sonic whispers. “I never stopped loving you, don’t think even for a  _ second  _ that I never loved you these last few months.”

Shadow has to look away, to hide the tears in his eyes, because he knew that Sonic never stopped but hearing it relieved some of the pressure in his chest.

“I love you too.”

Shadow knows they have a long way to go, but after all, they have eternity at their fingertips.


End file.
